Analysis of the UFC’s problems
By Jim Murphy December 7th, 2009Good article at MMA Rising analyzing in detail what currently ails the UFC. Not for lip readers, as its a long and thoughtful critique:
Citing overwhelming demand from UFC fans, White announced that former UFC Light Heavyweight Champions Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell and “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz would serve as opposing coaches for next year’s airing of TUF 11.
The announcement was met with a noticeable smattering of boos and near-complete indifference from the live Las Vegas crowd, but has since been a hot topic among fans online, who have almost exclusively panned the bout as a waste of time.
White, who seemed visibly unsure of himself as he made the announcement, had to be reminded of the weight class that the TUF 11 contestants would be competing at and appeared to be taken aback by the negative response from the crowd.
The announcement appeared to make little sense, with Liddell having lost four of his last five fights and Ortiz winless in his four most recent trips to the Octagon.
What was perhaps more troubling was White’s assertions that it was fan demand that led to the Liddell-Ortiz pairing – which will presumably lead to a third fight between the two in mid-2010 – when backlash in the past 18 hours suggests otherwise.
It is not the first time that White has recently made claims that have been exaggerated or completely untrue, but his recent tendency to stretch the truth on frequent occasion has upset even his biggest supporters.
Fans, who feel that they are being lied to and treated as fools, have expressed anger or frustration with many of White’s comments, not the least of which being his frequent attacks on WAMMA Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko, who competes for the rival Strikeforce promotion.
While White has done great things for the sport in the past, his brash personality is beginning to catch up with him and dozens of recent comments have mocked White when he has been forced to hastily scramble to replace main events due to injury.
Karma does seem to have a way of rearing its head and some feel that White is merely facing the consequences for spending significant amounts of time insulting the competition while his own promotion struggles.
He goes into detail about product oversaturation, judging and a variety of other issues. Very well done.
December 7th, 2009 at 4:58 am
I don’t necessarily see the UFC struggling. I thinl that is an exaggeration, most of the worlds best competition perfor,s there with the notable exception of Eliianenk. White’s claims are meant for the biggest chunk of his crowd, the new & ignorant fan. This sport is booming, ergo lots of new fans. White thinks he can spoon feed them information. To a degree, since he runs the biggest and best promoition, he may be right. On the other hand, he seems unable to learn this basic lesson. The internet is a very potent tool for the distribution of information. Sadly, overall, I think his fibs will have little to no effect on his promotion.
On a different & personal note, I have experience writing commentary and doing interview both with a humorous slant, once having been critiqued as, ” a unique voice in MMA.’ I am looking for a home to write for since ” Fight Ticker “went away, and I got hasty and started writing for ” Fight Tourist ” who don’t seem hungry to stay current. Would appreciate your consideration
December 7th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Thanks for the note–I’ll drop you an email about the second half of your comment in the next day or so
As to your first point, I agree that Dana thinks he can give his fans his version of the truth with little challenge. Some of us know to take it in the context of his role as fight promoter, others swallow it hook, line and sinker.
As far as the UFC’s struggles–there’s definitely some erosion of business in the short term. Some recent examples–Kimbo Slice was brought in strictly for his ‘box office’ appeal and yet the live crowd at the Ultimate Fighter Finale was only 1,400 people in a 2,200 seat venue. Last year’s finale–minus Kimbo–did a full house. Since their peak for UFC 100 and 101, all of the subsequent events have done an increasingly lower buyrate. UFC 102 did in the mid 400k range, UFC 103 did around 400k, UFC 104 around 500k. UFC 106–featuring Tito Ortiz, brought back strictly for his perceived box office appeal–did less than 400k. I skipped the UFC 105 show from England, of course, since it was on Spike TV in the US.
Now these can be short term downturns and certainly the UFC has had its share of injury problems which are well documented. Still, if they’re not asking why they’re selling less than a third of the PPVs for UFC 106 that they did for UFC 101 they *should* be. Maybe you’re right and there’s no serious problem. But if there is, the need to proactively figure out what it is and nip it in the bud sooner rather than later is obvious. Maybe its oversaturation? Maybe its the way the product is being presented and marketed? Maybe they’re losing ‘old’ fans and not bringing in enough ‘new’ fans to replace them? Maybe they’re losing ‘old’ fans who are willing to pay for the product and bringing in ‘new’ fans who want it free? Maybe they have a handle on it, but if they’re not at least asking why buyrates are going down rather than up they should be.
Perhaps the biggest concern for the UFC is, as you state, MMA as a sport is booming. I don’t need to tell you how many MMA gyms are popping up, how many clothing and equipment companies are getting into the business, etc. We probably have more MMA gyms in Portland now than we do Starbucks and that’s *a lot*. In an environment when its clear that people are getting into the sport as participants, where its getting media attention and where there’s significant economic investment at all levels it *really* makes the UFC’s declining PPV numbers problematic.
As I told someone yesterday, that’s what’s really fascinating about MMA–the sport really has no historical precedence. It is in its infancy, and is the first true ‘Internet era’ sport. Many of the old rules don’t apply. But I think its incorrect to assume that the UFC is ‘too big to fail’ in the right set of circumstances. There’s a number of examples of companies that pioneered an industry in the Internet era to be blown away by a competitor. The best example I can think of is Yahoo, which once *owned* Internet search but now is struggling to hold on to a 10% market share.
I’m the first person to admit I’m wrong, and honestly the drop off in PPV business for the UFC has caught me by surprise. I told several people after the UFC 100 buyrate of 1.7 million came out that within a year they’d be doing 2 million buys for ‘big shows’ and that they’d never go below 1 million buys per event. Didn’t quite work out that way. Based on the numbers, there appears to be a base of 400k to 500k fans that are consistant PPV buyers. If I’m Zuffa, I’m wondering where the 600,000 other people that bought UFC 101 went let alone the 1.3 million other people that pulled the trigger on UFC 100.